Roundup of Food Blog Posts I’ve Enjoyed #4

We bought a bag full of baby zucchini with flowers still attached, and when we took them home and started rinsing them out, we discovered that many of them were filled with dead bees. Yes, bees. What a perk!

Under the cut are links to excellent posts by other food bloggers that you ought to enjoy.

Travel update: I will be in Hungary for August 17-31. What should I see? Where should I go? Where should I eat? Do any of you live there, and if so, would you like to meet up? Let me know!

We will be flying into Budapest, then traveling for a week or so on our own, probably heading down to Pecs and maybe visiting Szeged and Tokaj and other places, after which we will head back up to Tarpa, the town where my grandmother was born. Then we will make our way back to Budapest. I will return with some Tokaji (a very sweet wine, from the area that first discovered how to make use of the noble rot) and tons of good paprika, I’m sure. I will try to post some older photos and recipes from net cafes while I am away, and I will post about the trip after I get back.Sam made chestnut ice cream using the same chestnut paste that my family likes to eat straight from the can, spooning sour cream and jam into the can along with it. Wow! I can’t wait to make this for my family, perhaps with the sour cream added to the ice cream and a fruity jammy compote on top.

I know Heidi posted this recipe for vintage jam tarts a while back, but I just noticed them. I’ve been making tons of jam lately, so I’m constantly on the hunt for excuses to use it all. This looks like a great excuse, as does Ivonne‘s jam crostata.

Barbara says that she doesn’t bake much, but when she posts desserts, they are always amazing. She recently posted a recipe for Aztec Gold Brownies that turned out just to be just scrumptious when I made them, sweet and dense and smoky and hot. I still make her delicately delicious Aphrodite Cakes all the time, and they are always universally praised.

I love chimichurri sauce. I spend a lot of my lunch breaks scarfing down the skirt steak lunch special at Coco Roco, the Peruvian restaurant closest to my job. There the maduros are soft and good, the rice and beans are actually flavorful, and the steak is just smothered in a beautiful chimichurri sauce. So, I am very much looking forward to trying the recipe posted over at A Fridge Full of Food.

Chopper from Belly-Timber made a salmon ceviche with poblanos, jalapeños, red grapefruit juice, and some very talented food styling and photography in the end. The results look phenomenal. Go check it out. After reading that post, it may be time for me to finally try making my first ceviche.

Helen explained how to make the perfect burger. I tend to overcomplicate things, so when I see a recipe that simple (meat, olive oil, salt, and pepper), it leaves me dumbstruck. Just a few top-notch ingredients, and it’s got to be good.

The baby spring vegetables in this roasted vegetable medley from Stephen Cooks look like long, narrow hag fingers to me, cut from Baba Yaga’s creeping hands in the night and served up for breakfast on the patio the next morning. I cannot stop looking at that photo. I cannot stop wanting to eat that meal.

I just recently discovered another lovely food blog, The Sour Patch. I was wandering through the archives over there when I came across a recipe for Armenian lentil and apricot soup. When winter comes, I will definitely be giving this a try. Apricots can do no wrong.

I actually followed Melissa‘s Chocolate Gelato No. 2 recipe, and it was incredibly smooth and densely flavored. I enjoyed it the most with a bit of fleur de sel sprinkled on it.

If you have time, you should visit the Danube Bend, which is full of castles and history, and terrific vistas. You can go by boat on the Danube up to Visegrad. Szentendre has been turned into a tourist town, but still has charm. My favorite Hungarian dish is Brassoi Apropecsenye, which is a garlicky stew.

Those zucchini blossoms are a sight to behold! Lovely to know that there are bees about doing their business. For the longest time we didn’t see a lot of bees or butterflies in our parts and I think it’s because of the pesticides being used. Recently pesticides were banned in our area and suddenly … bees! And butterflies!